God Is an Englishman (25 page)

“I take it you are a self-educated man, Mr. Keate?” and Keate said that he was, having taught himself to read at the age of nineteen (George Stephenson’s literate age, Adam reflected) and to write legibly a year or so later. Since then, he added modestly, he had studied some of the social prophets, includ ing Bentham, Owen, Ruskin, and even Carlyle, so that Adam’s respect for this huge, bumbling carter-coachman began to increase. Keate, he reflected, was an embodiment of the popular doctrine of self-help, and his portentous earnestness and obvious sincerity, some thing of a counter-poise to the appalling squalor around them.

He thought, with a certain satisfaction, “The double standard works among men like him, as well as with greedy merchants and class-conscious church-men. With a couple of thousand men like Keate I could fight my way from here to Cathay if I had to,” and he said, “What induced a man like you to enlist, Mr. Keate?”

“Curiosity, sir,” Keate replied, promptly, and with the wisp of a smile, “and it was more than satisfied in the Crimea. I took my dis charge in ’55 but by then, of course, I had made the Surrender, and realised my work was here. It is of little use, Mr. Swann, sending Christian missionaries among the heathen when one encounters this kind of thing on one’s own doorstep,” and he pointed to a screaming crone, blouse open and drooping breasts bare, being frog marched along the pavement between two bearded police officers.

“I’ve thought the same for some time now,” said Adam, and they passed into the relative peace of Southwark, heading down to wards the river, with the docks on their right and the Thames making another of its loops, this time round the Isle of Dogs, made famous all over the English-speaking world by Dickens’
Oliver
Twist
. It looked, thought Adam, a foul, unsavoury place, and a fit breeding-ground for any number of Fagins.

It was about here that they came, unexpectedly so far as Adam was concerned, on the first of Keate’s boys, a filthy little urchin with bare, mud-encrusted legs, who was engrossed in the task of emptying a bucket of mud dredged from the foreshore and extracting from the liquid mess a few knobs of coal that had fallen from a collier’s barge. In the last glow of the orange sunset Adam watched him with interest, and Keate said, “One of the coal gleaners. There are hundreds of them hereabouts living on what they dredge up and sell for a ha’penny a bag.

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They are some of the few on friendly terms with Jack Frost. In a hard winter their prices rise by as much as two hundred per cent.”

“Where the devil do they sleep?” Adam asked, and Keate pointed to a long row of hogsheads flanking the quay wall. Looking more closely Adam saw that about a dozen of the hogsheads were occupied by children, some sitting up, others sleeping under pieces of sacking.

“Don’t the local authorities accept any kind of responsibility for these waifs?”

“Yes, indeed, if approached by parents who are unable to feed or house them,” said Keate, “but these are survivors of the baby-farm scandal. They either do the best they can or go into the workhouse, to be farmed out to manufacturers as slaves. Mostly they prefer their independence, insecure as it is. They not only feed better on aver age over the year but they have the whole Borough in which to dodge the police. It’s a hard life, no doubt, but no harder than working under a foreman’s strap in the match or paper factories.”

“But isn’t there legislation against that kind of exploitation?”

“Yes, there is, in Shaftesbury’s Bill, but who is there to enforce it properly? No one is interested in teaching them a trade, and that brings me to my point. When your freight line is established how will the waggons operate over a long-distance haul? With a single carter, responsible for delivery only?”

“Why not? Loading and unloading would be the responsibility of consignor and consignee, that’s the usual practice, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” said Keate, “but what I have in mind is to enroll a carefully selected group of boys as trainee drivers, each under the supervision of a responsible waggoner. Given food, clothing, and a place to sleep, a majority are industrious little rascals, as you can see, and all are quick learners. Down here, living on their wits, they have developed the self-sufficiency one looks for among trained in-fantrymen. They can even be taught self-respect and become use ful, God-fearing citizens, providing one has the patience. It is not so difficult as one might imagine, providing one catches them early enough. But now that you’ve seen them, come along home with me, sir, and I can introduce you to my own small family,” and he gave the little coalsorter a coin and led the way up the wharfside entry and across the main artery into a maze of streets of terrace houses, all leaning one upon the other as if, deprived of mutual support, they would collapse in a cloud of yellow dust.

Keate’s house, in a block of back-to-back dwellings built under the shadow of the wall marking the entrance to Brunel’s tunnel, was recognisable even at a distance. Its curtains were clean and its step scoured free of soot. Its front GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 130

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door, opening on the pavement, had a polished brass knocker, and the room on which this door opened, perhaps twelve feet by ten, was lit by an oil lamp and scrupulously clean. There was a Turkey rug on the floor and a few pottery ornaments, and the walls were hung with texts, each embodying a quo tation from the Sermon on the Mount.

Mrs. Keate, summoned from the adjoining kitchen, whence issued a rich smell of baking, was obviously a fit partner for the evangelist, for she was almost as generously built, and it astonished Adam that all three of them could be accommodated in the low-ceilinged room and still avoid collision. Keate addressed his wife as Martha but she took no such liberties with him, referring to him as

“Mr. Keate,” dropping Adam a curtsey that was like the dip of a circus elephant.

For all her size she was obviously subservient to her husband, mak ing no comment when he peremptorily ordered tea but disappearing into the scullery after carefully closing the connecting door. While Keate was unearthing his register, Adam looked about him, sensing that Keate’s family were in bed but not asleep, immediately above them. Every now and again he heard a subdued giggle, followed by a shushing sound and a light scuffle.

“How large is your family, Mr. Keate?” he asked, and Keate seemed uncertain, for he did a sum on his fingers and finally an nounced that the house sheltered eleven, including himself and Mrs. Keate. Then he corrected himself and said it was twelve, for he had forgotten Joseph, the baby, asleep in a laundry basket under the scullery table.

Adam could not disguise his astonishment. “You rear ten chil dren? In this little house?” and Keate smiled, saying gently, “Well no, Mr. Swann. I cannot claim to rearing more than two, Mat thew and Joseph, my own boys. The others live here until I find places for them.”

The last of Adam’s misgivings based on the man’s unction dis appeared. “You mean, the other eight are boys like that coal-puddler we saw down at the wharf?

They share the room above with your own lad?”

Keate said, with a kind of defensiveness, “What else can a man do? There are eight here, but there are one hundred thousand on the streets of London. They want for space, of course, but we manage somehow. Fortunately there is a stable in the area out back. We eat out there, in relays.”

“Where the devil do they all come from?”

“A variety of places. Some from homes where the parents have died or have been taken sick and laid off. Some whose fathers are on the treadmill or picking oakum, but a majority are children born out of wedlock and sold to baby-farmers, GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 131

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who abandon them as soon as the parent’s back is turned. You might regard them as the more fortunate, for every year hundreds of farmed-out children die of neglect and starvation, and a few are deliberately murdered.”

“Good God,” exclaimed Adam, “it’s as bad as India.”

“It’s far worse,” Keate said, “for England has had the benefit of the Light.”

“How old are they?”

“Most of them couldn’t tell you. Ned, the biggest, is around eleven I would say.

We could start him straightaway, and perhaps two or three of the others by the time your waggons are on the road. But perhaps I am presuming?”

“You’re not presuming,” said Adam, grimly. “May I see the chil dren?”

“Why, certainly. They should be asleep but I’m afraid they’re not. Martha has her hands full when I’m not around at sundown,” and he motioned Adam to the ladder that led up to a trapdoor, as in a stable loft.

Adam went up carefully, for the ladder was old and rotten, and reaching the top lifted the trapdoor and stuck his head above floor level. The entire floor space was occupied by boys sleeping head to toe, and the urchin closest to him gave him a grin, winked, and said, equably, “Wotcher, Guv’nor!” There was no furniture and Adam noted that the bedclothes consisted of a few patched blankets, eked out with pieces of sailcloth and potato sacks. He closed the trap and came down.

“How do you feed that number of children if you’re out of em ployment?”

“I’ve been a saving man,” Keate said, “I had a little put by and I draw a few shillings from the mission when money is available. As I say, we manage.” The thing that struck Adam most forcibly was the man’s cheerful acceptance of so vast a responsibility, as though there was noth ing remarkable about accommodating eight dockside waifs and two of his own children in a four-roomed hovel. One had the impression that, had someone suddenly presented Keate with a barn, the first thing he would have done would have been to scoop up every urchin within easy walking distance, trusting in his Old Testament God to fill innumerable bellies in the morning. He said, “Have you ever heard of the Underground Railway in the United States, Keate?” and Keate said that he had, and understood it to be some kind of or ganisation for the rescue and redemption of runaway plantation slaves. He did not, however, see the connection. He was not a par ticularly quickwitted man. Perhaps there was no room for quick wits in a body that housed so large a heart.

“It came to mind when I looked in that dormitory of yours,” Adam said.

“You’re right, of course. Those children can’t be res cued by charity, not even charity on your scale. If I agreed to take a steady flow of them as van boys, and GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 132

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make sure they were trained in the care of horses and vehicles, would you be my adjutant? That would be an incidental office, of course. What I really had in mind was to make you my waggonmaster. I could pay you two pounds a week and make a regular contribution towards that orphanage you have up there. If the boys were coming straight into my service that would be in my interest as well as yours. Perhaps, when we were properly organised, we could enlarge your premises somewhat. Does a proposition along those lines appeal to you?” For the first time since they had met Keate shed his formal de meanour. His pink cheeks became pinker and for a moment he looked, most improbably, embarrassed. Then, as Martha Keate ap peared with the tray, he bowed his head. “It is more than I hoped when Mr. Avery brought me word of you, Mr. Swann. Do you place much reliance in the power of prayer, sir?”

“None whatever,” said Adam promptly, but Keate did not flinch. He said, carefully, “Some men don’t. God gives them other means of forming judgements.

How do you form your judgements, Mr. Swann?”

“By instinct usually. That’s what’s guiding me as regards you, Keate.”

“It could work that way,” Keate said, and left it at that.

Martha began to pour the tea and suddenly the giant’s head came up. He was over his moment of embarrassment and looked Adam in the eye. “You won’t regret the impulse,” he said, “for if I pledge my loyalty to a man it’s his for good. Those boys up there, I’ll not gammon you about them. We’ll get our failure rate, but it won’t be striking, I can promise you that.” And then, with an air of having disposed of preliminaries he opened his register, an exercise book filled with his round, childish scrawl. “How many vehicles will you be putting on the road in the first instance?” and when Adam told him round about thirty he said, running his huge hand over his chin, “Any fool can handle a one-horse waggon in open country. It’s dif ferent managing a team hauling a loaded, fixed-axle dray. That needs patience and sobriety, and I can’t promise you more than ten sober men, Mr. Swann, or not yet. We’ll do our best, however, but it might help if I had some inkling as regards areas of operation. Are you that far advanced with your plans, sir?”

“Not by a long chalk. But when they’ve been decided upon I’ll see that you get copies of schedules, together with maps. There is one other thing you should know. Mr. Avery will be acting as my backer and London agent, but I shall be responsible for the actual running of the business.”

“And I would be responsible to you alone, Mr. Swann?”

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“I’m your man, Mr. Swann. Now sup your tea, sir, before it goes cold. Martha, get Mr. Swann a cab from the mews. I’ll sift this book for a labour force, and on Monday I’ll run down the men and engage them, provisionally, at a rate of one pound a week plus two shillings a night out-of-town allowance. Would that be satisfactory to begin with?”

“Perfectly. I’ll leave that side of it entirely to you until I return to London. Did Mr. Avery mention I was to be married before then?”

“No, sir, he did not, but I should like to drink the health of you and your good lady, Mr. Swann,” and Keate raised his cup, bringing to this simple act the deliberation he brought to every gesture he made and every word he uttered. It was the first time Adam could recall his health, or anybody else’s health, being drunk in tea, and it seemed a fitting end to one of the most interesting and instructive evenings he had ever spent. He took out the box containing the ring and snapped it open. “Mr. Avery’s wedding gift to my fiancée,” he said. “The swan on wheels is to be our trademark. It was my fiancée’s fancy and I intend stencilling it on all our vans. Does that strike you as frivolous?”